Traditionally Western political parties have been put on a continuum ranging from Communist on the far left to Fascists on the far right with centrist parties in the center. The two major American parties occupied positions slightly to the left and right of center. It can be argued that this is noe changing and that the Democrats are moving to the left and the Republicans to the right. The question: Which has moved the greater distance toward the extremist ends of the continuum?
Since when?
The U.S. is pretty far to the right of the political spectrum compared to the world as a whole, so saying the Democratic Party is to the left here is still to say they are to the right of the rest of the world.
With respect to where the American people are: hell, yes.
Another in a series of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
Without speaking for the parties as a whole, Electoral-Vote.com had a piece a few days ago noting that, due to retirements where Republicans won & kept the seat or defeats to the Democrats, the remaining Republican Senate is going to tilt more conservative. Several notable ‘moderates’ lost their seats for one reason or another.
My original question had nothing to do with the American people. That is a different question entirely. Let me re-phrase the question, in the past twenty years, has the Democratic party moved further to the left than the Republican party has moved to the right. In other words, if the location of the parties on the political spectrum is like this
Communists…Dems…Repub…Fascists,
which of the two American parties has moved the most in the last 20 year?
I’d say both parties have moved to the right in the past 20 years. The DLC rose to prominence within the Dems and the left wing was marginalized. As for the Pubs – Reagan himself could not have gotten the support of his own party for torture, extraordinary rendition, Gitmo, warrantless wiretapping, etc.
As would I. We have the right wing Democrats; the far right Republicans, and that’s about it.
Well 20 years ago we had GHWBush/Quayle running against Dukakis/Bentson. The primaries included Bush running a fairly moderate voice campaign and Dole being the more conservative voice. But Dole would be moderate compared to many of the so-called the conservative voices of today. Dukakis tried to run from the liberal moniker, ashamed apparently of being a member of the ACLU. Most others running were indeed more liberal than he and included Simon (a good solid liberal) and a some real wins for Jesse Jackson. So liberals had some clout in the Democratic party back then even if the more moderately liberal one won.
Since then Clinton moved the Dems solidly centrist and the GOP responded by entrenching hard into their conservative, especially RR, base. Obama is clearly planning on being a compromiser and positioning in the middle.
So no doubt, on a 20 year time scale - the Democratic Party has moved to the middle, and the GOP to the Right, with some elements towards the theocratic-fascist side even while trying to keep the libertarians in the tent.
I would also say both parties have moved to the right in the last 20 and I think it is even more pronounced looking at the last 40. A good chunk of the Democrats are moderates now and not leftist. The Clintons among them. The Republicans have shifted even further to the right, I think it really lurched far over in about 1992 with Newt and by 1996 Dole had become a Moderate Republican without changing and I recall him being considered a Conservative Republican just a dozen years earlier. He didn’t move, the Republican party did.
Jim
I agree with those claiming a general rightward shift. I hear comments like “Bill Clinton was the best republican Prez of the last twenty years” “Obama will fill an essentially Goldwater position” “Ed Rendell operates like an old time GOP boss”- and there’s a certain logic to those claims.
Given my opinion that there isn’t much diff between the two parties, the slide has been concerted.
It is also interesting to rephrase it more along the lines of the Political Compass perspective, not just Right/Left but authoritarian/libertarian as well (which is more to the “fascist” question asked). Clearly none of the major players are in the libertarian side of the fence and the GOP is much more authoritarian with the Palin contingency most of all. Per that site Biden Clinton and Obama are all near middle but on the authoritarian side of the middle and only a hair’s breadth more so than Ron Paul. You want to get on the other side of that fence and you’d need to pick a Kucinich or Nader(!?!Really?!?) on the Left or Gravel on the Right. Not sure if I agree with their assessments but without doubt the Right swung far away from Reagan’s mantra of smaller less intrusive government and towards the fascist-authoritarian side. The Democrats I think are maybe a bit less so that way now, so more to the middle but unlike the Right/Left divide by going a direction opposite that of the GOP’s movement.
This thread is in the right forum. There’s no GQish answer to the question, unless we get pedantically facetious and say “no”, interpreting your question as “Is the Republican party farther to the right of the Democratic party than the Democratic party is to the left of the Republican”.
The problem is that there is no obvious and compelling def of where either party can be said to be “to the left of” except each other, and even there we lack a good clear def of what “left” and “right” might mean.
Its mostly because a single line continuum is not sufficient to categorize and rank political philosophies.
A x, y, graph does much better, but it is still not perfect. It is hard to define political philosophies in such an easy way.
To expound on this, the government has roles in foreign policy, economic policy, social policy, environmental policy, public safety policy, etc., etc. and many of these individual areas of influence can’t be easily defined by a line continuum, or even an x,y graph.
My bigger problem with the right/left paradigm is there has been such an abandonment of core principles in the past 30 years that is seems moving farther to the right/left only means more dogmatically supporting the position of your party, what ever that position may be. Although as a thoroughly biased outside observer, the GOP seems a little more guilty of this than the Dems.
Exactly the point I was aiming for. It becomes a tautology. “Right” = “what the Republican Party is all about”; “left” = “what the Dems are doing”. And I guess “middle” = halfway in between. Making the title question equate to “Is the Republican party farther to the right of the Democratic party than the Democratic party is to the left of the Republican”, in essence.
IMO McCain was running as a liberal Democrat. The election was a choice between Spend and Spend-more.
Sure. All liberal Democrats are in favor of more tax cuts for the rich.
And staying another 100 years in Iraq.
What I have heard, and I think it has some justification, is that of late the Republican party has not lived according to the traditional values of conservativism, like a smaller and more fiscally responsible government.
Anyway, I agree with those (like parthenokinesis) who say that “rightness/leftness” is not a single quantity that can be measured on a linear scale. The question can’t be answered meaningfully without a clear statement of what you mean by “right” or “left,” and your idea of what they mean might not agree with mine.